Caulfield Evangelical Methodist Church
- Weekly Pastoral Message -

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"Continuing steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine" Acts 2:42

Weekly Pastoral Message prepared by Rev. Murray Adamthwaite
for Sunday 20th July 1997

From the Pastor: Conscience III

"Our conscience is clear", proclaimed British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain as he took his nation to war with Germany in 1939. It needed to be, since it was to be the second German war within a quarter of a century, and a mere twenty years after "the war to end all wars" had concluded, with its terrible legacy of enormous casualties, disillusionment, a lost generation, and a changed world.

We hear similar declarations from various people in our present world in regard to a whole range of issues. Thus demonstrators can obstruct lawful passage, unionists cause disruption to industry, "gay" activists promote their lifestyle, and even churchmen, or women, proudly announce their sexual deviations, all with a "clear conscience"! Clearly there is something radically wrong here.

I observed before that conscience must be informed by the Word of God. However, with that properly informed and educated conscience the duty of the Christian is to maintain it and never violate it by failing to deal with any matter which nags at the conscience, or any rationalization. A nagging conscience can be a terrible scourge! As Hamlet remarks, The undiscovered country ... makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all. But in more positive vein Paul insisted to Felix, "I do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience before God and before men" (Acts 24:16). Let Christians do likewise in these days!

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Caulfield Evangelical Methodist Church
Please email comments to: cemc@genesis.net.au
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